Peintre Poem by Fiona Sze-Lorrain

Where the bamboo clacked
in broad light, you

thought the image

out of sight. Metronome
ticked, wondering

about time. Fingers
slow, you closed

both eyes to train a cathedral

of silence without lies. Something
fluttered, you couldn't

see why. Too bare, too alike.
Was it a stupa

of colors, down

to the thred? A bell rang
twice, you realized

it was there,

slanting by your side,

the voice of summer rain, the last
Manchurian sky.